Originally Posted by
UniChris
Typically a protected lane has room to stay out of the door zone unless passing another cyclist, that said pedestrians not reading it as a danger area is an issue.
Not in my experience. Protected lanes without floating parking lanes tend to be wider but floating parking is more popular. The
third picture in mr._bill’s post above shows the typical width of a floating parking lane I’ve seen. They tend to be only about 6 feet wide to begin with and a foot to 18” is taken up by a gutter pan. Riding down the center of one (to avoid the pavement/gutter pan seam) puts the cyclist about 3’ away from cars which is fully in the “door zone”.
As to pedestrians...and the ever present electric scooter menace...I happen to have ridden on a protected lane yesterday. The number of people strolling down the middle of the lane with a wider sidewalk than the bike lane right next to it was incredible.
This is a much bigger issue - not already being part of the traffic flow creates more problems at the points where you interact with it.
Exactly. And that is my major issue with “protected” lanes. They are meant to make cycling friendlier for people new to cycling. An experienced cyclist should recognize the hazards and ride with heightened awareness. A newbie be able to recognize the hazards nor would they think that there is any thing they need to be aware of. These are “protected” lanes after all.
Unfortunately, I don't think that's true. Bike lanes, especially protected ones, are more about giving lots of people the confidence to ride, than about making things faster for those who already do. In famous "bicycle cities" people ride fairly slowly. Confident vehicular cyclists tend to prefer the flexibility of mixing in with other traffic, especially in situations where that might not be all that much faster.
In an ideal world, you'd have a choice, unfortunately most places where lanes go in then decide to require you to use them.
Being forced to use them...either by law or by pressure from motorists...is the largest problem I have with them. I can ride fairly comfortably in traffic. I often ride across the middle of Denver on the surface streets and can move at the same speed as a car (traffic doesn’t move fast in a city core). But when a protected lane is put in place, I experience a lot more aggressive driving towards me if I’m outside those lanes.
Yes and no, we've had a lot of mid-block issues with cars, trucks, and busses impinging on an unprotected lane or hitting cyclists avoiding obstacles in it. And doorings or people swerving to avoid a door being killed by overtaking traffic. But you are right, the issues at intersections are real, and fully protected lanes not only likely enhance them, but almost by definition leave them as where the collisions happen, because it's all but the only place they can.
Mid-block issues are seldom more than inconvenient. As the article by Solomon pointed out, trading a low incidence problem like getting hit from behind for a much more prevalent accident mode is hardly making us “safer”.